Thursday, July 17, 2014

Buddhists don't believe in gods, so they're technically
atheists. Even Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, which as I read earlier,
calls upon the Amida Buddha for help reaching the Pure Land, does not
believe the Amida Buddha is a deity. He is just someone who attained
enlightenment. On the other hand, I suspect this religious tradition
will not appeal to typical atheists in the US, because of the clear presence of
supernatural beliefs.

But still there are plenty of anti-supernaturalist
atheists around who consider themselves Buddhist. Perhaps they are
working within a different tradition of Buddhism where supernatural
beliefs are absent or deemphasized. Or perhaps they're picking and
choosing from Buddhist traditions, taking only the parts they like.

There are some Buddhist traditions that I like too. I
like the idea of emptiness, and the idea that there is no constant
self. I think this is true to reality, or about as true to reality as
an ancient belief can be. I am not the same
person I was or will be, I merely share some attributes. Most (or all) things are not really things at
all, but patterns. There is nothing underneath.

But I'm pretty sure there's more to the Buddhist idea of emptiness
than that. And there are plenty of other non-supernatural Buddhist
traditions that I just don't care for. Like meditation. Or the Middle
Way. Or framing the world in terms of suffering and enlightenment.
None of that stuff's wrong per se, but it just doesn't appeal to me as a way
of seeing the world.

The choice for me is easy: I will not identify as
Buddhist. But if you're into all those Buddhist beliefs and practices, minus the
supernatural parts, you might be justified in identifying as Buddhist.

Yes many people who are Buddhist today believe in supernatural things.
However at the base of Buddhism, it is just philosophy of how to live
your life.

I really don't view Buddhism as a religion. Instead, I understand it to
be more of a lifestyle or philosophy; one that can be easily adapted
into any belief system or lack there of.

The early Buddhist texts, particularly the Pali Canon, are free from all the woo that seems to have come later.

There is a sutra in the Pali Canon where the Buddha basically states that it does not matter whether rebirth is real or not.

I respect people's decisions to identify as
Buddhist, but I disagree with some of these specific comments. If we
see Buddhism as a philosophy, to be judged on its merits rather than on
its authority, I don't understand why people feel the need to defend
"original" Buddhism. Gautama's Buddhism is no more authoritative than
later developments. For example, the concept of "emptiness" that I like
so much actually appeared some six centuries after the origin of
Buddhism.

I think people refer to the supposed naturalism of "original" Buddhism because they are trying to establish that Buddhism is at heart
a secular philosophy rather than a religion. But I disagree with this
view, because I think Buddhism, like all other things, has nothing at
its heart. It is empty, without any central essence to represent the "real" Buddhism. In other words, atheists can be Buddhists, but they are no more legitimately Buddhist than the ones with supernatural beliefs.

Buzzfeed once did a video "If Asians said the stuff White people say", which I think is relevant to the topic.

At 0:50, a guy says, "I'm really into western religions
lately. I love how they're so angry and uptight, you know? I decorated
my whole house in crosses!"

I wouldn't say that it's
appropriation, exactly, to take ideas from Buddhism that you like. It
wasn't "appropriation" when Filipinos adopted Catholicism, it was just
conversion (and colonialism). Buddhism is an idea that wants to spread, so there's nothing wrong with having it spread and transform across cultures.

However, I suspect that if there were more Buddhists in our culture, atheists in the US wouldn't be so quick to say that the kind of
Buddhism they practice is the real Buddhism.

3 comments:

I remember reading that Buddhism is a godless religion. But I also think it is more than just a philosophy. There is the belief in reincarnation and reaching nirvana. I think belief in an afterlife automatically implies some kind of supernatural power at work.

At 0:50, a guy says, "I'm really into western religions lately. I love how they're so angry and uptight, you know? I decorated my whole house in crosses!"

Will Ferguson in one of his book mentions meeting a guy from Japan who was converted to Christianity by watching the Anne of Green Gables anime. (Having seen some of it I can say it does give off a rather weirdly intense Anglican vibe, somehow.) So maybe this isn't quite as far-fetched as it sounds.

Japanese culture has this weird fetishization of American culture--Recently, I was reading this article, which even mentions literal fetishization. It basically amounts to a form of racism, albeit a racism tempered by colonialism. So no, it's not all that far-fetched.